Propagating Problems

The rate at which California coastal water conditions are changing is among the fastest globally due to warming and the development of co-occurring ocean acidification (OA) and hypoxia (OAH). Seasonal OAH may have major impacts on phytoplankton community structure, such as the occurrence of harmful algal blooms (HABs), that can easily propagate to upper trophic levels of the food web and could create an unprecedented challenge to the health of coastal California ecosystems, including valuable fisheries. USC Sea Grant has funded a study to experimentally alter pH and hypoxia while co-culturing key phytoplankton and zooplankton species to understand how they respond to the effect of OAH. The team aims would like to understand how co-occurring OAH and HAB events will impact zooplankton performance and bioaccumulation of toxins up the food chain. They also plan to confirm their laboratory results by comparing them against samples that were collected as part of the NOAA West Coast Ocean Acidification 2021 cruise. The team plans to communicate the results of their work to the research and resource management community concerned with OAH, hypoxia, HABs, and fisheries implications by sharing their data on the California Ocean Observing System (CalOOS) OAH portal.